A Novel's Beginning Scene

Here’s an update on what’s happened in the last week with The Reluctant Spy. I sent eight e-queries. In seven of them, I pasted in, per each agency’s web site instructions, a number of pages from the manuscript. The pasted sample ranged from five to fifty pages. I was able to send out three on Monday, one on Wednesday, and four on Friday.

         Within that same time, two of the eight agencies declined to represent the first-century Palestine novel. Still, this is just the beginning. I continue to believe that at least one or more agents will ask me to send the entire manuscript of 122,000 words. Then of course there will be the anxious waiting to see if, after reading, an agent will want to represent the historical novel.

         While all this has been going on, I’ve been considering the opening pages of the novel. Somehow the first scene has never felt right to me.

         Late last night, after staying up until 1:30 am to finish an intriguing mystery, I turned off the light and thought about the beginning of the novel I’d just finished reading. That led, quite naturally, to thinking about the beginning of The Reluctant Spy.

         Several years ago, an author asked me to read her manuscript for a historical novel. After doing so, I asked, “Do you like your main character?” The simple question startled her. Somewhat disconcerted, she admitted that she wasn’t sure any more.

         I explained that if she, the author, didn’t like the character, readers wouldn’t either. Readers need to be pulling for the protagonist. So in the first scene in which the main character appears, she or he must be shown in a way that will attract the readers' empathy and concern.

         Last night, I remembered that conversation and realized that in The Reluctant Spy I hadn’t followed my own advice—the novel begins with a scene in which Ephraim displays the darkest parts of himself to a man he considers his rival. Thus, the readers' first impression would probably be negative. That impression might color everything else they subsequently read abut him.

          Yet within a number of pages the story shows the strength of Ephraim and the burdens of his life. He then becomes a sympathetic character . . . and thus reader-friendly.

         So at 2:00 am this morning I sat here on this computer chair and began to reconstruct the first fifty pages. Now the novel begins with Ephraim showing himself in a good light so that readers will, I hope, root for him throughout the rest of the story.

         By the time readers come to the original opening scene, they will better understand why the main character is jealous and angry. They’ll understand, I hope, that like all of us, he is human. That is to say—flawed.

         After reorganizing the first fifty pages, I’ve ended up with a new first chapter and a more sequential telling of the story.

         I’m pleased with this decision, which was made on St. Michael the Archangel’s feast day—Michaelmas. That’s significant to me because just this past Thursday I found a slim manuscript about angels, which I’d written in 1995. Reading it again, I found myself wondering if it held any promise.          

          Perhaps Michael is now watching over me and has helped me find the right beginning for The Reluctant Spy.

         For many years, I’ve believed that I had fourteen guardian angels—my own, given to me at birth, and thirteen others, whom other humans had declined. All of them have stood by me in difficult times.     

         This week I, along with Michael and those fourteen guardians, will continue to send out queries. But I’ll be even more hopeful because the beginning is right. Peace.

Novel about Four Ex-Nuns

For the past two days I’ve been stymied about what to write for today’s posting. Then this morning, as I sat at the computer, organizing my array of blogs as bookmarks, an idea came: Why not share something about my manuscript for a novel about four ex-nuns?

         An old adage is to “write what you know.” And I do know something about nuns and ex-nuns. Also, I know something about the thought process that can lead to suicide because in the 1970s I’d struggled with those thoughts.

         The story developed from my wanting to explore what a suicide does to the family and friends left bereft and angered by the self-inflicted death of a loved one. As the main characters, I envisioned four ex-nuns, the mother of one of them, and a priest.

         Why ex-nuns?

          Because most people expect them to be women of deep faith.

         But what if the suicide of a beloved adult child of one of them tests that faith? What will moor them? How will the death affect their relationships? Who else, beyond the four of them, will be affected by death and by the changes within these women and their history with one another?

         I began working on this manuscript in the late 1980s, after I became a freelance line editor, copy editor, and curriculum developer. In 1984, at the age of forty-eight, I’d resigned from a well-paying and demanding position as the manager of the curriculum department at Winston Press. One of the reasons for my resignation was that I wanted time to write my own manuscripts.

         My freelance days were full-time busy with projects and with teaching evening courses on professional editing at several different junior colleges and universities in the metropolitan area of the Twin Cities. Nevertheless, each morning after breakfast, I’d enter my home office and write creatively for an hour. That led to two romances that never saw publication because, after all, what did I know of romance?

         Then the idea for the ex-nun story came to me. I wrote the first draft in a year, but laid it aside because the writing seemed uninspired. However, the manuscript taught me a great deal about writing. Its most important lesson was to let characters take hold of a story and direct it to its end.

         I hadn’t known that could happen until one morning when I came, unwillingly, to my Apple computer to write a new chapter with a new voice. Each chapter of the draft was in the voice of one of the ex-nuns. Three of them had already moved the story forward, but the fourth—Ruth—had been given no chapters of her own. The truth was that I’d developed an antipathy toward her because of what the other characters had said about her.

         Here's what happened that day:

         Reluctantly, I began Ruth’s chapter with her arrival at the protagonist’s home. An awkward conversation ensued between them. Ruth started to say something, and I suddenly realized what she was going to reveal. Her whole background—the story of a childhood tyrannized by abuse—flooded my mind.

         I heard myself say, out loud, “Ruth, you’re not going to tell her that are you? Please, Ruth, you’ll be hurt!”

         I began to cry at the pain and agony Ruth had endured. Tears trickled down my face and fell on my clenched hands.

         I felt the overwhelming disappointment of her life—a life that explained her barbed replies to those who tried to get too close to her.

         Then Ruth’s resolve coursed through me.

         I lifted my hands to the keyboard, and her story unfolded with its own grace and graciousness.

         My tears accompanied it.

         When Ruth ended her story, she, too, cried.

         And I?

         I embraced her. 

        Truly, to understand all is to forgive all. 

        From then on I counted Ruth as an aspect of myself that I now understood and loved.

         Writing, as you can see, is healing.